Divisionism, in painting, the practice of separating colour into individual dots or strokes of pigment. It formed the technical basis for Neo-Impressionism. Following the rules of contemporary colour theory, Neo-Impressionist artists such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac applied contrasting dots of colour side by side so that, when seen from a distance, these dots would blend and be perceived by the retina as a luminous whole. Whereas the term divisionism refers to this separation of colour and its optical effects, the term pointillism refers specifically to the technique of applying dots.

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movement in French painting of the late 19th century that reacted against the empirical realism of Impressionism by relying on systematic calculation and scientific theory to achieve predetermined visual effects. Whereas the Impressionist painters spontaneously recorded nature in terms of the...

December 2, 1859 Paris, France March 29, 1891 Paris painter, founder of the 19th-century French school of Neo-Impressionism whose technique for portraying the play of light using tiny brushstrokes of contrasting colours became known as Pointillism. Using this technique, he created huge compositions...